Horrible painful coughing

For the last few days I've had a really irritated airway and keep coughing. It's worse when I'm outside or somewhere I would perceive as being polluted. I don't have coughing fits, just one or two really long, dry coughs like I'm trying to force something up... I can feel when I'm going to cough as I get a tickle beforehand. It's been hard enough to give me a persistent headache and sometimes earache as well.

I know everyone is going to say 'go to the doctors' but frankly, they are almost always useless and treat me like crap. I know I am very overweight but because of that, I just get treated like a lazy fatty who is being a hypochondriac to escape exercise.

Unless I go in with an exact idea of what condition I have and what medication I think I do or don't need they just seem to sit there on Google which I can usually manage myself. I just want to know if this sounds enough like something serious such as asthma or bronchitis that I should bother seeing a doctor or whether I should just keep inhaling cough mixture for another week.